Wonder Cover Experiments - Penguin Books - Competition Brief

Out of all of my sketches I thought the typographic cover had the most legs, the concept was clear and it considers how the Penguin judges often favour strong typographic approaches. It links to the playful, 'workbook' feel of starting school, and allows August to have a point of different but in an abstract way, so the readers will make no prior assumptions about him. It also links to my point that the novel is told from several different perspectives - not just August's, so the other characters can also be represented in the faces of the other letters.

I initially began looking at adding a full stick figure frames on the characters - however, this looked messy - the bodies bunched together and were difficult to differentiate. I also considered having the O of Wonder completely separate to the others - emphasising his position as the main character and marking his difference - however this also looked out of place and didn't flow with the design. By placing the O on its side does work interestingly for the design, this again shows that August is exactly the same as the other children, but with a slight difference in appearance.

I then moved the words a little below the centre of the cover, this placement worked a lot better - especially with the additional text placed underneath. I began by experimenting with having the O illustrations in different colours to highlight the difference. The dark purple and blue did not stand out well on the cover.

I then began experimenting with adding  doodles and illustrations, as if drawn by August himself, the 'cool beans' is a phrase used by lots of characters in the book. I also added an additional texture to the writing, making it look more like a pencil illustration and thus more authentic as a workbook doodled over.

Because the doodles appeared a bit out of place, distracting from the title - I decided to replace them with general scribbles, achieving the same effect but with less distraction. I then trialed further colours, I found that the darker red and purple seemed too serious whereas the blue and pink worked a lot better to have an aesthetic children would be interested in. The blue however, seemed too light against the background and didn't strand out so well against the white of the type.